We had three baptisms in our little Wassenaar Branch last Sunday! Eneida, the woman in the middle, and Jackson and his son, Morgan, from Kenya. We were able to help teach Eneida a couple times with the elders. These are our three office elders who we see a lot of! It was pretty cool to witness these 3 baptisms and Albert's a few weeks ago - these are the first in maybe 5 years in this little branch.

Us with Eneida after her baptism. I was able to kind of be her helper during her baptism.

I love the tradition here of refreshments after the baptism with a little reception. People bring lots of yummy treats and we all eat and visit. Lots of fun. Here we are with Jackson and Morgan.

Look who came back to visit! Elder Relitz! We invited he and his family to our Monday lunch so he could visit with all of us and see our new office in the Netherlands. Elder Brockbank also was able to come for lunch so he could visit, too, as it was his P-day and they had been such great friends when they were companions. They had the best time reminiscing together.

Here's the family he brought back with him for the visit - mom, dad, and younger brother. Very nice people. They were spending about 10 days in his mission and then doing a tour of Europe for a couple more weeks.

I've been so proud of the bougainvillaeas we bought for our balcony. We're trying to fit in here and be like all the Dutch people with lots of flowers on our balcony. We found three pots to put them in at a big garage sale for one euro each. What a bargain.

More of a close-up. I'm so amazed at the flowers here and how well they grow. They have nurseries and flower shops everywhere and they are all so beautiful.

It's been a pretty quiet week after the baptisms. We made lunch for 17 for a district leader council and had a great time visiting with lots of our old elders. We went to Brussels for a day to help move more furniture from the old mission home - now that project is completely done. The Brubakers are really getting their new home in the Netherlands all fixed up.

11-17 June 2011

On the morning Ginger and Jed flew to Hungary, we went to Delft. Here I am buying some cute little ceramic Dutch houses at the open antique market they have every Saturday. We bargained and got a good deal on six of them.
Ginger bought some blue and white coasters from the same dealer.

Here are my six little houses, lined up at home for a picture.

It was a chilly morning so we hung out in the Centrum of Delft at the Bagels and Beans shop to warm up a little.

This is the old church(Oude Kerk) in Delft that kind of looks like the leaning tower of Pisa - it really does lean.

So now it's a week with Scott, Megan, and Becke! This is a picture of them at the Grand Place in Brussels. On Sunday morning we picked them up in Antwerpen and took them to our old ward, as Scott had served in this very ward as a missionary 18 years ago. He recognized two people. They didn't recognize him as he's changed too much. His Flemish was great and he could talk to everyone. It was so fun to introduce our family to our old friends. I especially loved seeing some of our friends who had gotten baptized and how strong they are. Victor, an African man Loel baptized two months ago, had his girlfriend at church with him. She came over to the sister missionaries and asked, "Could you come over and bring your little calendar with you so we can plan out when I can get baptized?" We were so happy! This Antwerpen ward is so amazing for missionary work - such a strong fellowshipping ward.

I wonder how many pictures of family eating Belgium waffles by the Grand Place that we have? We never get tired of taking them there and experiencing them again and again.

The next day was Brugge - such a lovely day, wandering around together.

A pretty window in Brugge with the reflection in it.

This is the church where the Michelangelo statue "Madonna and Child" is - this is the back of the church with the beautiful stained glass windows.

A cool old metal bike in Brugge with cute Becke by it.

I love these funny trees with the knotty leaves that look like fists.

Becke and I visiting in Brugge.

Megan and Scott at the Lake of Love with a chalet in the background.

Becke in all her glory - at their little computer in the apartment we stayed in in Brussels. We loved this 3 bedroom 3 bath apartment.

A gorgeous sunset from the window of that Brussels apartment.

One morning in Brussels Scott, Megan and Becke helped us move furniture out of the old mission home into our two mission vans. There was a lot of furniture that couldn't fit in the new mission home so it could all go to missionary apartments. There was really a lot of nice stuff, but we couldn't fit it all in and so the Saldens had to go back a few days later with two vans and get more.

Scott and Megan were huge helps - thanks to their muscles! They spent about 3 hours helping us that day.

Sister Salden and I showing how packed one of the vans was with all the furniture. We were able to use a vanity and chair in our apartment and a variety of other things. The Saldens were thrilled to have all of this for the missionary apartments.

I figured this might be one of the last times we saw the old mission home in Brussels - here's Becke in front of it. It's such a beautiful home.

Here's Loel in the Anne Frank cafe where we waited for Megan's family to do the tour. We had been on the tour several times. They enjoyed it. Amsterdam was a rainy, cold day, but we still had fun with our umbrellas.

We had seen this dish when we ate at a couple of pannenkoeken houses. It's called "baked eggs", but I think they are just fried. It's three eggs sunny-side up, over thinly sliced ham, over three slices of bread - with a small salad on the side. We tried it the other night when we took Scott, Megan and Becke to the White Swan in Broek in Waterland. It's delicious.

We went to the cheese market again with Megan's family. We learned some new things. This market has been in existence since 1382 (yes - 1382).
In this picture the quality experts are slicing a round of cheese in half.

They look and feel the texture.

Then they take plugs of cheese out of it and feel it again and taste it. They were cutting plugs of cheese and passing samples to the onlooking crowd.

There are several crews like this that pick up the "trays" of cheese and take them for weighing. The rounds weigh between 12 and 13 kilograms (26-28.5 pounds). That could be up to 225 pounds of cheese plus the weight of the tray.
The cheese is weighed before the final price is negotiated.

Typical little houses in Alkmaar, some dating back to the 1500-1600's. The one on the right looks like the little ceramic houses Paula bought last week.

More little houses in Alkmaar. You can see they are literally on the canal.
We had "Carin's Boutique" in Mannikandam and here we have "Dani Mode" in Alkmaar. (You have to look closely at the downstairs windows in the house on the right.)

Paula loved this little house with the red door.

Megan, Scott and Becke in Alkmaar.

Megan wanted to see a windmill up close. In the 11th hour (Friday afternoon), she finally saw one up close.

Scott wanted to ride bikes as a remembrance of riding bikes on his mission. We dropped them off in the seaside town of Katwijk onde Zee(cat-vike on the sea), on the coast of the North Sea, and they rode bikes for about 2 1/2 hours. They had a great time. We found a market nearby that we visited and liked and plan to go back.
It was a great week with them here. Scott was always so enthusiastic about everything as it brought back so many memories for him.

4-10 June 2011

This week began our two weeks of company with the arrival of Ginger and Jed on the 4th. So far our guests have been all our kids - she's the first sister to come.

We didn't let them rest before we departed for a quick tour of some small towns north of Amsterdam. This is the weighing house in the little town of Edam, known for Edam cheese. Ging and Jed just kept on walking, trying not to fall asleep. We bought cheese and tasted lots.

Cheese comes from contented cows, and this cow is surely contented. A little trivia. It takes 10 liters of milk to produce one pound of cheese.
We continued with our plan to keep Ginger and Jed awake until bedtime by taking them to the small seaside town of Markam. It's the island of all green and red houses.

As the day wound down, we stopped for dinner at our favorite pannenkoeken house, The White Swan, in Broek in Waterland. We sat outside and had delightful food and conversation.

We traveled to Brugge on Monday and visited an exhibit of Picasso paintings that are in a gallery in an old hospital. The grounds are stunning.

Still on the hospital grounds, the newly cleaned spire of the Church of Our lady is in the background.

We went on a canal ride and the calm movement of the boat was too much. Ginger and Jed both took a little nap. I don' t think they saw much of the canal sites through Brugge.

We visited this spot on the Lake of Love for the first time and found this beautiful view of a chalet across the lake.

This a pretty little house in Brugge.

The next day was Brussels and a visit to a candy shop. Candy, especially chocolate is a big deal in Belgium.

More candy. The Belgians take their chocolate very seriously. There are literally chocolate shops everywhere in Belgium.

Ginger and Jed on the Grand Place in Brussels.

We left Brussels and drove to Kinderdijk on the way back to the Netherlands and home.

On Wednesday evening we joined President and Sister Brubaker in the new Mission Home for a goodbye dinner for four departing missionaries. We spent the day in the office while Ging went to Amsterdam for the day with Jed.

Elders Favero, Garrett, Robinson, Brockbank, Keith and Roberts. It's always with mixed feelings that we say goodbye. We're happy to see them move on to the next phase of their lives, but sad to see our relationship with them change. They've been great friends and examples.

On Thursday Megan, Scott and Becke arrived for their visit to see us and for Scott to revisit his mission. He served in Belgium 18 years ago. Megan is the 8th of our 9 children to come visit us.

While Loel drove Megan and Scott to Ghent, Belgium, (where they spent 3 days visiting people and sites from his mission 18 years ago) Paula accompanied Ginger and Jed
to Amsterdam. We had a blast that day, visiting museums (Van Gogh and Anne Frank), open markets, cafes, riding trams, walking, etc. It was a beautiful, sunny day.

They visited the Van Gogh museum (I took this picture of a replica outside the museum - you can't take pictures in the museum.)

Each Friday an old fashioned cheese market is held in the city of Alkmaar. Loel and I took Ginger; Jed stayed home in our cozy little town of Rijnsburg and enjoyed a down day. We all loved Alkmaar - we had never been before. They had lots of market stalls; my favorite was a man who made little bicycles - I got a pair of bicycle earrings - pretty cool for a Netherlands momento.

It's done just like it was hundreds of years ago with the buyers coming and making bids on the cheese, tasting it first, etc. Very fun.

We loved walking around the town and seeing colorful buildings, many of them dating back to the 1500-1600's.

There were some darling streets with lots of cute little shops that we loved here in Alkmaar.

We stopped for an organ recital in this cool church.

It's been a really fun week with Ginger and Jed. We also took them to meet Anya's family. She made us an absolutely delicious meal, which Ging said was one of the highlights of the trip. We loved seeing them again and seeing how happy they are and how well they are doing.
One night Ging and Jed treated us to a wonderful meal at our favorite Greek restaurant here in Leiden. It was a cool Greek meal with 13 different dishes - very fun - took like about 3 hours, but we loved it.
We had a couple of really nice long walks around our town and all along the canals. They really fell in love with our town.
The morning they flew off to Hungary we took them to Delft and wandered around the open market and the town center and the canals. We all loved Delft.

Next week, our visit with Scott and Megan.